


From a Different Angle

by cjmarlowe



Category: Fringe
Genre: M/M, Prime universe, Queer Themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-04
Updated: 2011-05-04
Packaged: 2017-10-18 23:30:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/194471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cjmarlowe/pseuds/cjmarlowe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter invites Lincoln to coffee three times, and on none of those three times is Lincoln prepared for what he reveals.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From a Different Angle

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Queer Fest, for the prompt: "Any character. You knew your doppleganger from Over There would be different. You just didn't expect that s/he would be straight." Spoilers up to Stowaway (episode 317).

"Jesus, it's not a date!" said Lincoln after he threw the phone back on the bed, snorting at Myles's insinuation before he even turned around to see the look on his face. "You're not funny."

"I'm hilarious," he said, wrapping one arm around Lincoln's waist before he could get away. "That's why you love me."

"I'm pretty sure I love you in spite of the fact that you think you're much funnier than you actually are," said Lincoln, leaning back and let Myles support him for a moment. "But seriously, do I look all right? I have a weird feeling this might be the second most important cup of coffee of my life."

"Second?"

"You were there for the first," said Lincoln, then kissed him over his shoulder to distract him while he slipped away. "I won't be long. Peter wants to be back in Boston this evening."

"Be as long as you need to be," said Myles, and in spite of the fact that he was grabbing at Lincoln's belt loops as he said it, Lincoln knew that he meant it. And he knew that when he came home, Myles wouldn't ask him questions he couldn't answer. There were years of understanding between them. "I'll be down in my office. If you're going to get some work done, I might as well get some work done too."

It was a work meeting, absolutely, and nothing Peter had said led Lincoln to believe otherwise. But he liked to think he was also getting together with someone who could be a friend. And so he felt fairly light as he kissed Myles good-bye and headed out into the afternoon.

The first time Peter Bishop asked Lincoln to coffee, he told him there was an alternate universe.

"I need a minute," said Lincoln. "I need to sit with this for a minute."

"Only a minute?" said Peter lightly. "That'd be a record."

Lincoln grinned at him, a kind of a lopsided smile that some people found endearing and some people found awkward. He hoped Peter was the former, but ultimately it didn't matter that much. He was who he was.

He hadn't even been sure he'd ever hear from Fringe Division again. There was a part of him that still wasn't sure the whole case hadn't been some kind of a weird dream, spooky labs and women who couldn't die and a whole group of people who treated it like it was commonplace. But there was a paper trail and a lockbox of evidence and now Peter Bishop telling him that everything was real.

"You weren't supposed to tell me this, were you." It wasn't even a question; it was a statement of fact.

It was that weird time of afternoon that came after the lunch rush, after the lazy afternoon lingerers, but before the onslaught of after-work visits, and so there was nobody nearby to be listening to their conversation. But Lincoln still felt very exposed, holding that kind of information out in the open like that.

"You know how I told you your clearance suddenly got astronomically high?"

"For a few days, anyway," said Lincoln. "Not much has changed in Hartford. Not much ever does."

"Well, it doesn't go away," said Peter. "Once you're in, you're in. We sort of play by our own rules in Walter's lab."

Lincoln sipped his cooling coffee and tried to imagine a world very much like, and very much unlike, this one. But all he could think of was his comic book collection, full of alternate realities that were always shockingly divergent from this one, and which could never be mistaken for real.

"Which doesn't mean go home and tell your girlfriend all about it."

"No, of course not," said Lincoln, and didn't correct him on that point. "You've been there, this other universe."

"You could say that," said Peter, then nodded his head. "Yes. I've been there." Lincoln didn't become a FBI agent by accident, he noticed the difference between those two answers, but he'd also been on the job long enough to know when to push and when to let things go.

"What's it like?"

"It's hard for Olivia," said Peter. "It's hard for Walter, too, but it's harder for Olivia. I think you lose yourself a little bit, when you try to look closer and closer at what makes you different, and what makes you the same."

"The fact that our universes are even similar enough for exact duplicates of us to even exist..." said Lincoln. "Think of all the same things that had to have happened. The same sperm meeting the same egg. It's astronomical."

"I think we were exactly the same up to a point," said Peter, "and then something happened. A butterfly flapped its wings in China. Someone made a left turn instead of a right turn. A crucial vote went a different way. Something like that. And suddenly the universes were two very different places."

"And people with the same genetic make-up diverged," said Lincoln. "Have they met? Have they talked?"

"They've met," said Peter. A little darkly, Lincoln thought. "It's amazing how similar they are, until you start digging."

"And when you dig?"

"And when you dig you see that they're not the same person, no matter how much they look like they are," said Peter. There was more, Lincoln could tell, but it wasn't coming out.

"It must be confusing," said Lincoln, "to feel like a person should be you, to feel like you should know everything they're going to do, and then be wrong every time."

"You get used to it."

"Do you?" said Lincoln. "How?"

"I don't know. Maybe it's like identical twins. Your twin looks like you, is built like you, but isn't you."

"Maybe," said Lincoln, but he didn't feel convinced. This was someone who was supposed to _be_ you, who was supposed to be constructed in exactly the same way. "Have you ever—?"

"No," said Peter before he could finish the question. "I haven't. I guess I've been spared that particular identity crisis, at least."

He drained the rest of his coffee in one gulp, setting his mug down with a certain amount of finality.

Lincoln sat with that information for a while, let the pieces come together and shift his mental landscape. He was good at this part, at letting the connections happen that other people didn't, at being open to ideas that other people would dismiss, if that was how the pieces fit.

He went home afterwards and slept on it, and really wished he could tell Myles everything. But even though he couldn't, Myles still held him without asking, murmured comforting things in his ear and watched the game with him without a word of complaint. It helped, at least a little bit.

 

*

 

"Your secret boyfriend's on the phone," said Myles as Lincoln stepped out of the shower, bare-assed naked with a sloppy towel slung over his shoulders.

"Tell him I've got plans tonight, but I'm free next Wednesday," said Lincoln without thinking, pressing his damp hand to Myles's back. "Wait, is that Peter?"

"You have another secret boyfriend?"

Lincoln reached for the phone, but Myles was already thumbing the end button and tossing it aside. "He wanted to meet you for coffee. I told him you were free but you have to be back by nine for your spanking."

"Can't we make it ten o'clock? It's a special occasion."

"Maybe just this once," said Myles, whipping the towel off Lincoln's neck and using it to dry off his ass. "Now put your pants on and go do what you've got to do."

The second time Peter Bishop asked Lincoln to coffee, he explained about the war.

Lincoln had been imagining a scenario in which, eventually, people could just pass between universes as easily as catching the train. But nothing was ever as simple as that. Instead it was abductions and doomsday machines and prophetic writings and infiltration and sabotage.

"Where does that leave you?" was what he asked after he let the sordid story sink in. "Where do you belong?"

"I wish I knew," said Peter with a tiny, rueful smile. "It wasn't easy."

"No, it's not easier than meeting yourself, is it?" said Lincoln. "It's harder, because you don't just wonder about who you are, but who you are supposed to be."

"What are you, a shrink in your spare time?"

"Just an analyst and investigator," said Lincoln smoothly. Myles laughed at him sometimes, when he got too caught up in dissecting people and their motivations. Lincoln didn't share that with Peter. "This is why strange things are happening here. Things like Dana Grey. It's because we did this to them."

"Not on purpose," said Peter. Lincoln would have thought he'd be angrier, but he seemed at peace with it all. "Walter's made mistakes. Walter's made a _lot_ of mistakes. But he's my father."

"Is he?"

"He is," said Peter firmly. "I made some mistakes of my own figuring that out, but I got there."

"Do you think you would have been different, if you'd grown up in that other universe?"

"I think everything would've been different if I'd grown up over there," said Peter. "And we would never have known it because we would never have known it was out there at all. We wouldn't be having this conversation. We never would have met."

"Maybe," said Lincoln. Or maybe not. Knowing what he knew now, it was harder to say. "But you know that's not what I meant."

"I think I would have been happier," said Peter. "I think I would have seen more of my father. It's very likely I would have gotten a lot more formal education and spent a lot less time in prison. But ultimately, I think I would have been the same person. Just different."

"Like Olivia. Like Walter."

"Like that," said Peter, but his voice grew fainter and definitely more plagued with doubt. "Different, but fundamentally the same."

It was all an intellectual exercise to Lincoln, pulling apart these differences and looking inside, finding out what made them tick. But for Peter it was more personal than that. Lincoln had a hard time imagining what it would be like for any of them, to cope with a doppelganger, to live with the knowledge of that person out there, living a different life.

"Do you think about it a lot?" he said. "Who the person was, who should have been here?"

He knew his questions were indelicate, probing, but Peter didn't rebuff him. After working together on a case, Lincoln felt like Peter probably knew what he was getting into, coming to him with this information.

"I like to think he would have grown up to fall in love with Olivia Dunham," he said. "Somehow. Even though we would have had no real reason to ever meet again."

"There are always reasons," said Lincoln. "The universe—universes—are clearly built on epic coincidences. If it weren't for improbable things, nothing would exist. I don't mean that I believe in fate, but...maybe you were meant to fall in love with her."

"Have you ever felt like that about a woman?" said Peter. "Felt like you were _supposed_ to be with her?"

"Not exactly," hedged Lincoln. "But if alternate universes are real, maybe this is too. Maybe there are some fundamental relationships that happen no matter where you are."

"You may be right about that," said Peter, and sipped his coffee. "It is a little weird. It was weirder when I first found out how all of this happened. I was so _angry_ then."

"Of course you were," said Lincoln, almost relieved to hear it. He felt like anger was the _normal_ reaction, not calm acceptance. "You were kidnapped."

"More than that," said Peter. "It felt bigger than that. I was cheated and betrayed. I wasn't just kidnapped, I was stolen, like a _thing_."

"But you got over it."

"How could I not?" said Peter with a helpless raise of his shoulders. "This Walter raised me. I loved this Olivia. This was my home." And if there was more to it than that, which Lincoln suspected there was, it was another conversation for another day. "But I didn't know who I was for a little while. I couldn't figure out who I really was, if I wasn't who I always thought I was."

"Except you were," said Lincoln, "because there was no discontinuity. Your father got a different son, but you are the same person from start to finish, no matter which universe you were in."

"Yeah," said Peter, and just toyed with his cup this time, not sipping, just staring. "Yeah, exactly. But I still felt it, that disconnect. It's hard to explain."

"I can imagine," said Lincoln. "Or rather, I can't, which I think is the point."

Today's revelations left Lincoln a little more shaken than last time, once he was finally able to just sit with them, because it made the whole thing more personal. It wasn't just that there was an alternate universe out there, but there was an alternate universe that was a personal and direct threat to him and his life. But even then, it felt somehow distant, like a scary bedtime story. He didn't know how this information was going to affect him, he just felt an uncomfortable certainty that it would.

 

*

 

"Going out again?" said Myles. "You just got home."

"I know I told you I'd cook tonight, but how about I bring something home for dinner to make up for it?" said Lincoln.

" _Not_ pizza."

"I know better than to bring pizza home when I promise a good meal," said Lincoln. "This shouldn't be any longer than the last time. Peter just has some more information for me."

"This must be some case."

"You have no idea," said Lincoln, and pulled him into a long kiss, not just to make Myles a promise but to find some comfort of his own. Coffee with Peter Bishop was always enlightening, but it was seldom comfortable. Even though they'd reached the point where Lincoln felt like he could call him a friend.

"Bring home some more of _that_ , too," said Myles, and laughed and let him go.

"Plenty more where that came from," said Lincoln, grabbing his coat from the back of the chair he'd just left it on. "See you soon."

The third time Peter Bishop asked Lincoln Lee to coffee, he told him about himself.

Lincoln had known all along, in a vague way, that if there were duplicates of everyone else that there would probably be a duplicate of him too, but he'd figured he would be lost in the periphery like he was here. He hadn't counted on them knowing him.

"This is why you told me everything," he said finally. "Not just because you could, but because you thought you should."

"Because over there, you're _in_ Fringe Division," said Peter. "You always have been. And we think that might mean something. _I_ think that might mean something about you here."

"Wow," he said, and leaned his chair back onto two legs and stared at the ceiling for a moment. There was a bad replica of _Starry Night_ painted on it; he could pick out the stencil lines underneath the thin paint. "Wow."

"This is kind of not a coffee conversation, huh?"

"It's more of a scotch type of a conversation."

"Definitely more of a scotch conversation," said Peter. "Or at the very least, a couple of bottles of wine. Which we will have to do some time, but maybe not right now."

"They frown on bringing your own wine to the coffee shop," said Lincoln, "unless they do things differently in Boston."

"We do things very differently in Boston," said Peter, "but we try to limit it to the lab."

"You have wine in your lab?"

"We have a lot of recreational substances in the lab," said Peter, "but that's another story for another day."

An alternate universe, that was a shocker but Lincoln processed it pretty well. And war wasn't easy to deal with, but it was comprehensible. It was a concept that Lincoln had studied in both abstract and concrete ways. He knew what war was, and he knew _why_ war was.

But identity was different. Identity was something he'd struggled with in just this one universe, let alone dealing with another identity in another universe.

"Tell me about him?"

"He's pretty badass," said Peter, and grinned and Lincoln couldn't blame him for that. There were many things he'd been called in his time with the FBI—and anywhere else—but badass was definitely not one of them. "He heads up the team in the field a lot of the time, saves a lot of lives. And not just because he's madly in love with their Olivia."

"He's in love with Olivia," said Lincoln, pushing his glasses up his nose and looking at Peter like he couldn't possibly be telling the truth.

"Well, not _our_ Olivia," he said, though there was this look on his face that Lincoln couldn't quite read. Something a little wry, and a little dark. "That doesn't mean you are too, does it? Because that could get awkward."

He couldn't stop the sharp laugh that erupted at that. "No, definitely not."

"What, is that funny?"

"Kind of, yes," he said, smiling into his cardboard cup.

"What's wrong with Olivia?"

"Nothing!" he said quickly, sipping his coffee. It was sweet and bitter against his tongue. "Just not exactly my type."

"Well, you didn't meet her at her best," said Peter, with that dark, wry smile again.

"Unless at her best she's tall, dark and handsome," said Lincoln, "then I don't think that'll make a difference."

Technically he wasn't closeted, not since he was nineteen, but he didn't normally make a point of saying anything, _particularly_ to colleagues. He'd never been in a situation where he felt it was quite as relevant as right now, though.

"Olivia can do many things," said Peter, giving him a nod of understanding—Lincoln had seen that one many times, "but that's not one of them."

"But the other me..." he let that one trail off, his meaning clear. "That's so strange. I would have thought we'd both...."

"I guess it doesn't work that way," said Peter. "So the guy who answered the phone last time...not your roommate."

"My husband," said Lincoln. It was the word they chose to use and he didn't leave space for Peter to argue the terminology and legality of it. "But it should work that way, shouldn't it? I mean, I'm not scientist, and I understand we've had completely different experiences, but if he looks just like me and he has my name, and he comes from the same parents...shouldn't our fundamental genetic make-up be the same?"

"I don't know," said Peter. "It's a little more complicated than that, I guess."

It wasn't supposed to be, though. Anything else, yes. Their different upbringing, their different experiences, that should have been where the two Lincoln Lees diverged. Not this.

"It's a little unexpected."

"More than everything else I've told you?"

"Different from everything else you've just told me," said Lincoln. A little more real, for one. A little more within his realm of experience. "A lot more personal."

He really wished he could talk about this one with Myles, just for some perspective if nothing else. But he couldn't do that without explaining everything else, and that just wasn't possible. All he had was Peter.

"Bear with me," he said, "if I need to talk this one out."

"It's a lot to take in."

"Do you know how many times I've had this conversation?" said Lincoln. "I've told people a hundred times that it's not a choice, and then suddenly there's another me and he's _straight_. What's different about him? What went differently in that world?"

"It doesn't have to mean anything," said Peter. "There's so much that's different over there. It could've been anything."

"He's _me_ , but he's different in what I thought was a completely fundamental way. So how can he still be me?"

"He's _not_ you."

"You know what I mean."

"Walter would say that human sexuality is very complicated," said Peter. "He probably has a personal anecdote on the subject involving peyote and body paint that would scar me for life."

"So he's always like that?" said Lincoln. "I didn't just meet him on a special occasion?"

"Yes and yes," said Peter. "Yes he's always like that, and yes, you did actually meet him on a special occasion. But that just put him on his best behavior."

"I'd hate to see him on his worst," said Lincoln. "No offense."

"None taken," said Peter. "You _would_ hate to see him at his worst. But Walter is, in fact, a bona fide genius, and on top of that sometimes he even gets things right."

"It's just weird," said Lincoln, and he almost felt like laughing, an uncomfortable, baffled laugh..

" _That_ part's weird," said Peter. "Of all of it, that's the weird part?"

"Yes," said Lincoln. The other stuff was surreal, but it was easier to come to terms with. This...this was intimate. This was a fight he thought he was already finished fighting, and suddenly it was rearing its head again. Everything he thought was settled had become a question again. "It's hard to explain."

"Try me," said Peter. "Remember, I spend all my time with Walter and Olivia. 'Hard to explain' is in the job description."

"Did you ever feel like you completely understood something, like you knew yourself, and then had the rug pulled out from under you?"

"You have no idea."

"I know I'll find my footing again, but right now the whole foundation of my life is a little unsteady," said Lincoln. "Everything I thought I understood...maybe I don't."

"There are a whole lot of things we don't understand," said Peter. "The things I could tell you— _will_ probably get around to telling you if you don't decide you want nothing to do with Fringe Division after this. The universe is full of mysteries."

"I'm pretty sure there's a difference between...immortals, and human sexuality."

"A mystery is a mystery," said Peter with a little shrug. "Just because this other Lincoln is in love with Olivia, that doesn't mean you were wrong about anything."

"Doesn't it?"

"I've been dealing with this whole alternate universe thing for longer than you have," said Peter, "and maybe I don't understand exactly what it is you're feeling right now, but believe me, identity becomes a really weird thing."

"People don't become what's not in them in the first place."

"How do we know what's in us to begin with?" said Peter. "Even genetics can be altered with the judicious application of certain chemicals at the right stage of development. It doesn't mean you were wrong. About anything."

"It's certainly food for thought, though," said Lincoln. "I mean Olivia? _Really_?"

"Hey, now!"

"It's a little hard for me to imagine liking a girl," said Lincoln, shaking his head. "Not for real. Never have."

"Never?"

"Not even as a questioning teenager," said Lincoln. "Are they together?"

Peter shook his head. And looked away for a little while before even attempting more of an answer to that. "No, he just pines," he said. "Which I know more from Olivia from my own experience, so I can't really define what 'pining' means, exactly."

Which meant that it wasn't just that he was trying to remain closeted. That choice would have been more comprehensible to him, because it _was_ a choice. He'd made a different one here, but he could understand going the other way, if circumstances were different. But pining meant it was the real deal.

"You probably think I'm being weird about this." Peter just shrugged, looking pretty non-judgmental. "When you grow up gay, you spend a lot of time thinking about why you are the way you are. And eventually, if you're lucky, you reach a point where you don't worry about it anymore. It's a little weird being pulled back into that thinking stage again."

"You think you're going to stop worrying again?"

"And a lot faster this time, I hope," said Lincoln. "I know you don't have the answers. I don't know if anyone does. I guess I just need to work through it a little."

Peter was a good sounding board, but Lincoln couldn't expect him to be more than that. Not about this, anyway.

"So...you're married?"

"Three years," said Lincoln, and he didn't wear the ring on his finger—too many questions and too many job hazards—but he did wear it on a chain around his neck and he pulled it out for Peter to see. "Three years last month."

"You do anything nice?"

"You looking for ideas what to do with Olivia?"

"Maybe," said Peter, leaning back in his chair. "You seem to have a lot more experience with this stuff than I do."

"Well, food and sex are usually a safe bet with guys," said Lincoln. "I'm not sure if that's going to help with Olivia."

Peter laughed, and Lincoln was definitely starting to feel a little bit lighter again. A little bit more balanced.

"How classified is this, exactly?" he asked, though. Just to be sure.

"So classified there's no classification for it."

"So still no going home and telling my husband about it."

"That about sums it up," said Peter. "Sucks, right?"

"Well, it won't be the first time," said Lincoln, though it was different this time. This time Myles would have been able to offer some much-needed perspective on the subject. But maybe Lincoln could approach it from a different angle, a more theoretical angle, and get the level-headed conversation that he needed without divulging classified information.

And if not that, Myles had a hundred other things to offer him that would all make him feel like himself again.

"So I guess it's probably just about time you've got to...."

"Yeah, I should start heading back," said Peter. "Find out what kind of trouble Walter's gotten himself into while I've been gone."

"Check on Olivia?"

"Something like that," said Peter. "We have a...complicated history. I don't want to waste any more time."

"You'll have to tell me about it some time."

"I don't know when I'm going to see you again," said Peter. "There's some heavy stuff going on. But if I can manage, I'll—"

"Call my husband and make another play date with me?"

"Something like that," said Peter, and grinned as he shrugged into his coat. "See you around, Agent Lee."

Lincoln genuinely hoped that he would.

He didn't forget to pick up dinner, even after all that. There was an Indian place Myles liked across the street from the coffee shop, and he popped in for takeout.

It felt like the world was off-kilter now, but outside of his own head everything was going on the way it always had. A kid on a skateboard whizzed by him, an odd man in a hat and suit sat on the bench outside the restaurant, and an impossibly young couple kissed at one of the few tables inside as he waited for his order.

He wished he could go home and tell Myles everything, but he'd have to settle for that going on exactly as it always had too. But even without talking about it, Myles could center his world again, remind Lincoln that he was exactly who he'd always known he was, and no alternate version of himself could ever change that. It was a comforting thought, and he hastened his steps back to his car and home.

The man in the hat watched him as he went.


End file.
